Religious Fanaticism as Part of Child Abuse

I am reading the book The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff for my Book Club and really enjoying it. The book is about the polygamy in the Church of the Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) and has two storylines. The first storyline takes place in the present day in a cult offshoot of the Latter Day Saints. A man’s 19th wife is accused of killing him, but the son believes that his mother is innocent. The second storyline is a historical fiction account of Brigham Young’s 19th wife and her reasons for speaking out against polygamy.

Although I am enjoying the book, there are parts that I find triggering due to having been raised by a religious fanatic who also abused me. I kept thinking that my mother would have fit right in with the cult offshoot because the protagonist’s mother sounds eerily like my mother – doing hurtful things to others in the name of a deity. She does not seem to give any thought to basic common sense or decency. She has bought into the authority of someone else and given all of her power away in the name of religion when she is really just taking no responsibility for her own choices. How many times did my mother harm or neglect me in the name of religion?

Many readers have shared that they, too, were abused by religious fanatics. I have heard everything from being raped by pastors/deacons to missionaries. The worst part is that these abusers are revered by the many, which makes it doubly hard for the abuse victim to feel validated – How can someone so “good” by all account be abusing me like this?

My mother is no saint, but you sure could not tell her that. She is like a religious puppet – espousing all of the things that she believes she is supposed to say to “be religious” while putting very little of the responsibilities of her religion into practice. The sad thing is that I bought into her self-declarations of being so “godly” for much, much longer than I should have.

I vividly remember the moment that I finally challenged the truth of my mother’s claims. For decades, I had taken for granted that my mother was “g*dly” and I was not. She “heard from G*d” while I did not, and I was so angry with G*d for choosing her over me. The moment the blinders fell off my eyes was huge for me! I finally saw her for what she was – a self-deluded liar who did not bear any of the “fruit” that should exist in the life of a person who is truly g*dly. I realized that descriptors like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control did not apply to her … not even close. That awareness was a huge step in healing for me. The proof was always there, but it took me a long time to see it.

Someone else just told me about this book. This person said my sister and I should write a book. We were raised in a Mormon sect as well and our dad espoused to two wives. However, my mom never really believed fully in it. She hated the situation, was very jealous and always told us to never, ever get into a polygamist marriage. I am thankful for that!
If we had been left completely at the mercy of my dad, we would have been married to polygamist, older men.
In our particular sect, the older the man, the more of an honor it is.
My dad was told he was one of the “twelve apostles”- yet he was an alcoholic, abusing his wives and kids, more particularly his children.
The saddest part of it all to me is, they blasphemed the name of God- a good, holy, pure, loving, caring, self-sacrificing creator.
How would any of us feel if people were doing atrocities in our name? Telling others that is what we taught them to do? We would hope that they would not believe it and come to us personally and ask if it were true.
That is what I have done with God and still do today, ask ask, ask, seek, seek, seek…. and it is paying high dividends towards my healing, hope and wholeness.

My abuse increased when both of my parents became part of a Fundamentalist cult. While I have not read this particular book, however I have read Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall and Escape by Carolyn Jessup and have found that these works allowed me to relate my abuse to theirs in a strangely comforting way.

I too am the adult child of a fanatical “born-again” fundamentalist, bible thumping father. I am 53 and still suffer the effects of this, such as severe depression and feelings of guilt and shame. Is there help for me?

When I was 13, my mother joined the Jehovah’s Witnesses and pretty much brain washed most of us to follow. This such a complex situation when you really stop to consider the situation of children being lead into the hands of people who are clearly unbalanced. In a world full of woe, it is understandable that some people want to escape, even if it is into an imaginary world of false prophets. Unfortunately, children are the true casualties, since they really do not have choices. Does anyone ever get over something like this? Hopefully. I no longer speak to any of my family who is involved with the JW’s. It is impossible to communicate with irrational people. Creating a new environment, reinventing yourself, I believe is key.